


Patterns

by phrenitis



Category: Fringe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-01
Updated: 2010-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:11:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenitis/pseuds/phrenitis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has gone horribly wrong, and as she races to finish the job she thinks, yet somehow expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Patterns

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Season Three, _Do Shapeshifters Dream of Electric Sheep?_

_“And when it comes again – it will –  
just walk at it, walk into it, and walk,  
until you know that you’re no longer  
anywhere.”  
\-- Amanda Dalton, ‘How to Disappear’_

==

She knows there is not enough time. It has gone horribly wrong, and as she races to finish the job she thinks, _yet somehow expected_. It is desperation in the end; action without meaning, orders without reason.

It’s close, _so close_ , and she tells herself that the sacrifices were irrelevant, insignificant. But Peter’s there, and she wants to believe it’s fury she sees, but it’s betrayal instead, it’s _pain_.

“Olivia,” he says, and then the bullet takes her down.

==

For fourteen days she sits with little company and little privacy – interrogated occasionally, but mostly left to silence that weighs heavy and roars endlessly in her ears.

Walter brings her coffee “for stimulation”. He sits outside the partition, watches her curiously, sympathetically perhaps, and taps his fingers against the glass to a rhythm she cannot identify.

“We do things for our cause,” he says. He waits for a response, is apparently satisfied when she doesn’t give one. “Like a quilt.”

She hasn’t seen Peter since he shot her – not in the back, even he couldn’t do that.

“I’m a soldier,” she explains to Walter.

He nods. “Me too.”

==

She contemplates death, but knows on this side it will be imprisonment. It leaves more to imagine and prospects are slim, so she talks. There is information she won’t share willingly, but Walter is clever and liquid needles loosen her tongue anyway.

“I’ll tell Peter everything,” she says before another session, bruises on her arm shiny and mottled.

They don’t wait, and he doesn’t come.

==

“I am Olivia.” At night, she reminds herself of this.

She is the enemy too, of course.

==

They have everything eventually, the past, the plans, the end game. She knows when they figure out the missing piece, wonders why they don’t ask her to explain why she made the mistake that cost her everything.

Peter shows up then. He doesn’t ask questions, but she sees them all over his face.

“It’s war,” she says.

He shifts closer, his eyes dark. “Is it really that easy?”

“Yes,” she lies. She knows he understands.

==

In the lab, Astrid doesn’t meet her eyes, gives her wide berth and almost manages to make it look natural.

Broyles stands, coiled anger, and though his hand doesn’t rest on his gun, the threat is clear. “I want Olivia Dunham back,” he tells her, each word a punch.

She looks in the tank, tries to avoid Peter’s gaze. The water is murky, but it’s calm, still, and her heart beats fast. Walter pats her shoulder, puts an electrode on her chest. “The drugs will take that away.”

When she gets in the tank, Peter is there beside her, hand in hers. She looks at him, lost for words.

“This is how you fix it,” he says simply.

 

 _-Fin_


End file.
